Introductions - New To The Forums

I'm in Sacramento, CA, just discovered these forums. I'm 49 and I don't own a car anymore, so my bike has become primary transportation, supplemented by feet and public transport as necessary. I commute most days to work, an easy eight miles round trip--flat city!--but also use my bike for most other errands--groceries, library, etc.--in addition to a fair amount of pure pleasure riding. My bike is a 25-30 year old (don't know exactly--it has an old city registration sticker that expired in 1981) Motobecane ten-speed touring bike that I bought in well-preserved condition for $20 at a garage sale about ten years ago. :) It's a comfortable old work-horse of a bike that's still in fine condition (except for the tires and the pedals, which have been replaced, all the original components are still in place and working), and perfect for what I use it for.

I'm hoping to get another bike sometime in the next year or two (I'm considering a Breezer, and am also intrigued by the Dynamic chainless bikes), but I'll keep this one, as I'm very attached to it. I initially got rid of my car--now nearly two years ago--because it required expensive repairs that I couldn't afford to make (disability income supplemented by a part-time job), but I've found I don't miss it at all, and wouldn't get another car now even if I could. I'm afraid I also find myself gloating a bit as I'm cruising past the gas stations where people are lined up to pay $2.50/gallon and up to fill up their polluting monsters.

Hi Primary and welcome to the fourm. Sorry no one replied to your first post on this forum in a timely manner but better late then never. I use to live on El camino & fairoaks in carmichael. I moved to roseville last summer and have been ripped of more here then when i lived in carmichael. How do you like riding amongst the "cagers" of Sacramento? Crazy but fun, right? Like living a real life video game. Are you close to the AR bike trails. I was just a few blocks from there. Roseville tries to make this a bike friendly town but the "cagers" don't like sharing the road.
This fourm is cool. And if you hunt long enough you can find some really decent people here. Hope to see yu out there one day......
Dang.

Thanks. I live about four miles from the nearest access to the bike trail, and ride there frequently. I find riding among the cagers of Sacramento to be usually just fine; yes, some days are more of an adventure than others, but overall, no problem. I haven't been aware of any particular hostility that I have felt directed at me as a cyclist per se here (oh, there's the occasional jerk in a car, silly impatient people on their way to their terribly important nowheres, but they were on the road when I was driving a car myself, and I don't see a lot of difference, honestly--and for that matter, I encounter quite a few jerks on bikes; people are people, no matter how they're traveling, and vast generalizations are pretty useless).

I was in my LBS the other day having some work done on a wheel, and one of the mechanics there was saying that "Sacramento isn't a bike-friendly town." Such statements always puzzle me. In any large metropolitan area you will find people who are pro-bike, some people who are anti-bike, and the vast majority who are just folks who want to get to where they're going without any hassle, whatever their mode of transportation. I'm a strong believer that energy is powerful stuff, and that if you exude fear and hostility, you'll get it back, and vice-versa.

I find that as long as I am courteous and careful and law-abiding on the road, the vast majority of people in cars are too. For every road-rageful-moron-in-a-hurry I encounter, I get twenty drivers who smile, who give me plenty of space when they pass me, who waive me through intersections, who back up when they notice that they're blocking the bike lane I'm in, and are clearly not out to get me off my bike or off the road. I just can't buy into the idea that most people in cars hate people on bicycles. That just hasn't been my experience, and I've been a cyclist off and on since my teens (and that was a good long while ago).

But anyway, thanks for the welcome. :)